


The Last and the Only

by oneshallop



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, fenris is still on the run, mercenary hawke
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:06:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24014083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneshallop/pseuds/oneshallop
Summary: Hawke is Lowtown by trade and by blade. She signed with a gang-lord six years ago and has roamed the streets of Kirkwall ever since, a knife in her hand and her crew by her side. But her tides turn ill when a chance encounter binds Hawke to a Tevinter magister. He promises Hawke her freedom on one condition: find his runaway slave.
Relationships: Fenris/Female Hawke
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	The Last and the Only

Hawke was Lowtown by trade and by blade. You’d have to be mad—or very, very good—to take her in these streets. She whistled as she ambled down the alleyway, both hands tucked into her pockets. Her eyes flicked about, left-right-left, like a rattlesnake in the waiting.

A small figure, twenty fathoms behind her, gaining fast.

Hawke tucked herself into the next bend. Her assailant came hurtling by her; she cut her boot across his ankle and brought him down hard. A blade, now shyly winking, was held at his throat.

“Ratter,” Hawke said brightly, and sheathed the blade. She patted the side of his jaw. “Did you make up your mind?”

Ratter was a wiry boy with a head of red curls that had ruined him for a pickpocket. “Andraste’s saggy tits,” he swore, catching the spot on his neck where she had nicked him.

Hawke grinned at him, unrepentant. “So?”

Ratter spat a glob of phlegm by the wayside. “Meeran’s an old shitebag. He robbed me out of four coppers the last time I worked for him.”

“And you’ve decided to come back for more?”

“Have to,” said Ratter. His jutting jaw let her know what he thought about that. “With pay that good, you’d have to be mad not to think about it.”

Hawke tilted her head thoughtfully. “They don’t think that we’ll survive to collect the pay.”

“Shows what they know. You’d have to be an ogre to take down the likes of us.”

“Right,” Hawke agreed. “Us, who took out five hundred grams of lyrium right under Chantry noses?”

“Laid it flat, sewed it into the rims of our clothes, didn’t we?”

Hawke put her hands together and genuflected her eyes as if in reverent prayer. “Blessed mother, holy prophet, hallowed be thy name. Keep us from harm and soil, keep our eyes to the sky—”

“—And keep us from getting turnt!” Ratter hooted.

They made their way up the steep incline that lead from the Foundry to the factories. The smog was so thick here that it was practically liquid. It took more to take in the breath than the breath gave back.

“Aw Hawke,” Ratter said suddenly, as if reminded of something. “Your brother ain’t coming, is he?”

Hawke frowned. Carver was a horror and a half but he was still her brother.

“Is old mister whingebag tagging along? I’m making a stop here lads, I ain’t taking another step forward—”

“He’s not coming,” Hawke said shortly.

“Praise the Maker,” Ratter drawled. Then, “The sister, though, I wouldn’t mind half as much. She coming, Hawke? Sweet Bethy?”

“No,” said Hawke, firmer this time. “And keep your eyes off my sister.”

“What, you think I ain’t good enough for your kin?” Ratter asked, turning on her with arms raised high. “I’m a good man, and I turn a fair coin every now and then.”

“When’s the last time your pay hasn’t gone to the girls or the drink?” Hawke shot back.

“Why, only last week—"

“You were draining the dregs of every leftover glass at the Skunks.”

“A fortnight ago—”

Hawke scoffed. “You started a fistfight by the Foundryside.”

“Fine, a month ago—”

“Just don’t go for my sister,” Hawke advised. “It’s a bad idea all around. There are plenty of other fish in the sea.”

“But Bethy! The prettiest of them all, with tits out to here—”

Hawke whacked Ratter across the back of his head. “We’re nearing Meeran’s office. You won’t want to be talking about tits in front of him.”

They had cut through most of Lowdown through their argument and now approached a squat bunker that hunkered below the stinking sky. Ratter was rubbing the pads of his fingers together; a nervous tick.

They shouldn’t’ve been considering the job. Hawke and her crew had signed with Athenril five years ago, and with Athenril they were meant to remain. As a rival gang, the only interaction they should’ve had with Meeran was to spit in his general direction as he walked by. But tides had turned ill, and purses drawn tight. A girl had to get her food on the table. 

Hawke firmed her shoulders. She was the one who had persuaded her crewmates to sign with her, and she was determined to see them all through.

She ambled up to the guards, all lolling arms and nonchalance. “We’re here to see Meeran about the ship-and-load job.”

Guard one looked at guard two, and guard two looked right back. Hawke could imagine what they were looking at: a scrapper not even half their age. She was tall for her age, but her musculature ran lean to the point of weediness. She had the pallidity of Fereldans and the ice eyes of the Anderfels. Together, it ran a combination to be scorned at every turn: young, female, and an outsider.

The first guard folded his arms. “Says who?”

Ratter bristled beside her. Hawke stepped on his foot to shut him up.

“Hawke,” she said, edging her smile up a notch. “And there’s here my crewmate. We got the notice from Lia, down at the docks? She should’ve send word ahead to the boss.” There was especial emphasis in that final word.

“I imagine that he’d be a busy man, the mercenary leader of the Red Iron. And I guess this would be a pretty big operation too. Lots of people he’d be bringing about. I don’t think he’d be happy with any particular impediments, you see what I’m saying?”

The guard stared her down. Hawke could see the two warring impulses within him: the urge to send her ragtag team scurrying for the hills, and the more cautious thought that he ought to hear her out. In the end, it was the latter that won out. Meeran was not known to be a forgiving man.

The guard stepped aside. “You make so much as a scuffle,” he warned, “and we’ll be right at your heels.” He pulled aside his coat to reveal the blade latched at his belt.

“Yes, of course serah,” said Hawke, sliding past him.

The bunker was austere: functional over personal. There was nothing to indicate the stature of the man who languished within. Hawke and her crewmate followed the path to its natural end and peered inside.

Meeran was not a tall man, but he caught the awareness regardless. He was powerful with years of hand-to-hand training. Although later years of sedentariness had sapped much of his musculature, there was nothing diminished in his manner. Hawke’s immediate impression of him was one of ruthless ungiving. This was a man who would never bend—he could only break.

Hawke cleared her throat. “Serah.” Unlike earlier, her tone was diffident and careful.

Meeran set his pen down and examined her with steely eyes. “Yes?”

“I’m here on behalf of my crew, the Howlers,” said Hawke. “We have the best success to fail ratio in the western district. We’re smart, we’re organized, and I can guarantee that we have a skillset that none of your men have.”

Meeran snorted with disbelief. “You scrappers? My youngest boys would beat you in a run, and they’re barely off their mothers’ tits.”

Hawke crossed her fingers behind her back. “Do you remember the job you ran at the docks last month? You must’ve had, what, half a crew diverting a shipment of lyrium—it was two on the look-out while six ran the loads.”

Meeran’s eyes narrowed. Hawke hurried on.

“Well. Every crate would have been maybe one-tenth too light. It was just enough to escape the notice of the boys running the job, but I imagine that it was well felt by your accounts a month later.”

“You’re telling me that that was you,” Meeran stated, folding his arms. His face was inscrutable. Hawke couldn’t tell if he was impressed or irritated.

Hawke swallowed. “That was us. I only had three of my guys on that job, working against your full half-crew. That’s how good we are.”

“Indeed,” said Meeran, leaning forward. “I notice that you’ve yet to mention your ‘particular skills.’ Tell me, how did you do it?”

“That’s for me to know, and for you to find out.” Hawke tried a grin. “I can’t be giving away all our secrets.”

There was a calculating look to Meeran’s eye. He was considering the costs and advantages of her crew—but also, Hawke knew, of the political implications of bringing in Athenril’s lot into his own operations. The gang-lords of Kirkwall were in bitter rivalry with one another and such matters were not to be undertaken lightly.

“You work for Athenril,” Meeran said finally. “How can I be guaranteed your loyalty?”

Hawke nearly sagged in relief. They had him. “Because we’re staking our reputations on it. I signed your agreement and we’ve made ourselves public. If we back out on you now, there’s not a man or woman alive who’ll still take us on. We’ve got our working lives to look out for. That’s going to be your safeguard.”

There was a long pause as Meeran digested this. “Fine, but you’ll start with grunt work—passing a load to and from checkpoints. You might even act as a distraction while we run the real work but that’ll be the extent of it. I won’t be having Athenril’s crew anywhere near the runways, not in an operation like this. Am I understood?”

Hawke understood him perfectly. They hashed out a few of the technicalities—payment, in particular—but she was satisfied by the time it was their due to leave.

With her hand on the door, Meeran spoke for the final time. “However—and mind me well, girl—I don’t let anyone cross me. If I hear that you’ve turned coat, or that you’ve been dallying with my rival still, my retribution will be hard and swift.”

Hawke didn’t acknowledge this: she kept walking, her crew hard at her heels. It wasn’t until they were fully out of sight that Ratter turned and smashed her a good one across the shoulder.

“That was brilliant!” he crowed. “Well said, Hawke. Really well done. ‘A skillset like you’ve never seen?’ I should damn well hope the old bastard has no one like you.”

Hawke wrapped her hand around her wrists: an old nervous habit. It was death by hanging or the Gallows for those of her ilk. She didn’t trust Meeran anywhere near enough to let him know her greatest secret.

“I’ll have to keep it quiet,” she mused aloud. “Work the tricks without revealing myself.”

“You’ve done it well enough before,” Ratter dismissed. He whirled around, arms stretched out wide to either side. “Say, you know what this calls for?”

“A drink?”

“A drink,” Ratter confirmed.

“A drink,” Hawke repeated, smirking. “What happened to sobering up for Bethany?”

“You’ll never let me near the girl, you miser. Anyway,” said Ratter, “A girl’s a mystery, but the drink’s a constant. To the Skunks! And damn any fool who tries to stop me!”

They didn’t go to the Skunks. In their good mood, they meandered into the eastern districts. Here, hundreds of tents peaked tall; men and women in sea silk and everknit haggled with shopkeepers. The Lowtown markets were rumored to sell everything under the sun: herbs from the Free Marches, leather and hides, fashions straight from Orlesian tailors. There were more exotic stalls too, ones with guardsmen at their entrance: apothecaries that sold the heart-strings of dragons, the scales of phoenixes. Some were even rumored to sell magic.

“Hawke!” Ratter hissed. With darting eyes he gestured towards their target: a middle aged man, his red coat gaping open as he inspected a bit of tiger’s eye.

Hawke ran the tip of her tongue over her teeth. Silently she rounded the back until she was out of sight; Ratter wandered forward.

This was an old play, one they’d honed over the last six years. Ratter would sidle alongside their target—never touching them, only moving close enough to attract their attention.

Hawke slipped behind their target, and when she was sure that no guardsmen paid attention to her, she dipped her fingers into the nobleman’s belt.

A flash of agony burned up her arm. Gagging, Hawke crumpled. She couldn’t see: there were only white blurs; nebulous forms of nothing. She couldn’t breathe; she gasped, choking around her own throat.

Guardsmen caught her under the arms and dragged her upright. Bony fingers grasped her chin with iron strength and forced her face upwards.

“I do believe that I have found a pickpocket,” the nobleman said in the calm, educated cadence of a Tevinter lord. He tilted her face like he was surveying a horse on the market.

Hawke kicked forward, and then doubled back as a steel-capped boot smashed into her stomach.

“Manner-less,” the nobleman said, clicking his tongue. “But I may have a use for you still.”

Horrified, Hawke turned to her last resort. She reached deep within herself and found the seed of fire within, drew out a thin wire of the power. Instinctively, she fashioned a loop, cast it forward—

The nobleman caught the spark with his bare hand and crushed it into cinders. His eyes were glinting with real interest. “You possess the gift?”

He spread his hand over the column of her throat and a red mist seeped into Hawke. She shuddered all over, felt it glimpse the fire at her centre.

“What a wonder,” said the nobleman. “An apostate in this filthy trap of a city, and of no poor quality besides… Such squandered potential.”

“Who are you?” He asked of her. When she did not respond he shook her, like a cat would a rat.

“Hawke,” she muttered.

“Your profession here in Kirkwall?”

“I’m a hired hand.”

“Indeed?” mused the man. “How fortunate. I am looking for… a servant of mine. He has proven a slippery creature to catch, but I imagine that he has found employment in a station similar to your own. I will have your help in locating my errant servant.”

Hawke couldn’t refuse him. Sweat wet the plane of her face. She was agonizingly afraid of the pain he had incited within her. She feared it like no other pain she had ever known.

“Of course,” said Hawke, bowing her head.

The nobleman nodded, her response a borne conclusion. “And for my own insurance…”

The nobleman was still holding her by the neck. An electric current ran between thumb and forefinger. Hawke buckled at the knees and would have fallen if not for the men holding her up. Without lifting a hand, she knew that she had been branded; marked and collared with a sigil at the hollow of her throat.

The nobleman forced her to look at him one last time. “I am Danarius, though you may call me master. I promise you this: find me my servant and you shall have your freedom.”

The nobleman released her, and Hawke ran like a dog with its tail between its legs. Down the stairs, down the alleyways, and back into the familiar darkness. Only there did she sag into the filthy walls, panting.

“Fuck,” she muttered. Then, “Fuck! Fuck! FUCK!” Louder and louder until she was nearly screaming the words. “What the fuck was that? That red old bag of shite!”

Hawke kicked at the pavement, the wall, a piece of wood that flew across the alleyway and hit the house opposite, splintering. “The shitbag! The pissing rich bag!”

Hands caught her by the shoulders, and Hawke fought them off, shuddering.

“Ay, Hawke, it’s alright. Just me, right? Your friend Ratter.” Concerned eyes were looking into hers. Eyes that she knew like her own brother’s.

“Yeah,” said Hawke, gasping. Her chest was heaving like she had run to Sundermount and back. “Yeah, Ratter. Hey.”

“Bit of a shitbag wasn’t he, that old man? The fuck was it with the glowy business, eh?”

“Yeah. The hand thing.”

“But you’re alright? Nothing too messed up? Fucker didn’t get to you?”

“Nah,” said Hawke. “Old man can’t get shit, I’m like a cockroach.”

“That’s right. Fucker can’t get to you, not our Hawke.”

“Yeah,” said Hawke.

“It wasn’t a fair fight anyway,” said Ratter, arms laced behind his head. “He had half a dozen guardsmen on him in a second, all of them waving their batons around. We could’ve taken him on if not for that.” 

They slammed down the pathways, jostling passers-by who knew too well not to say anything. Hawke and Ratter kicked at anything they could move, leaving wreckage in their wake. The Hanged Man beckoned, yellow light streaming from the windows.

Hawke knew the Hanged Man like the back of her hand. She knew that the third step on the stairwell creaked slightly. She knew to avoid the stew on Fridays. But most of all, she knew its various and complicated denizens.

The newcomer stuck out like a black ram in the middle of Solis. He was tall, lean in an angular way. A hood covered his face, but at the base of his neck something glinted pure white.

“What’re you looking at?” Ratter asked, peering over her shoulder.

“Nothing,” said Hawke, and she steered him away.

There was a crowd forming at the bar, chatter about who had signed off on Meeran’s latest job. With money promised in advance, Hawke and Ratter let their tabs run deep. She tried her hand at a game of darts; nearly threw a boy over the table for the insult he paid her family. It was the usual uproarious fun, and if there was a certain cutting knife’s edge in her laughter—some sort of residual anger—well, no one was counting.

“Hawke,” the barkeep said suddenly. “Isn’t someone bothering your boy?”

There was. The hooded figure that Hawke had been observing earlier had caught Ratter by one arm. The stranger was taller than she’d pegged him for; he towered over her friend by half a head.

Hawke was glad for the promise of the fight. She was with Ratter in a flash, carving her shoulder into the space between him and the newcomer.

“Everything alright, serah?” Hawke asked in a breezy tone. The words were directed at the other man, but her eyes were on Ratter.

“The bloody bastard, he got right up in my face,” spluttered Ratter. “Came at me out of nowhere!”

“Your friend was giving his attentions to the unwilling,” said the newcomer, low and slow.

Hawke swiveled with a retort at the ready—and then she stared. The lean build was an indicator of his race, as was the long, angular slant of his ears. But no ordinary elf had lines of solid light carved into his skin. They flashed and flickered like a pulsebeat of an unearthly god.

“The girl was happy enough to be getting a drink,” Ratter was complaining. “It’s not a crime to be saying hi after.”

Irritation flashed over the elf’s face. He made to face Ratter. “There was no—”

Hawke grabbed the elf by the arm. A wash of numbness carved up to the base of her skull. Before her, the elf lit up. Luminescence spread from her fingertips as ink through water, alighting the delicate curves of tattoos that ran full body. With the single touch, Hawke knew two things about the elf: that his name was Fenris, and that the carvings in his flesh were solid lyrium.

“You—” the elf spat. There was a slow and dawning realization in those eyes—and, for an instant, something disturbing and black.

He brought a protective hand to his chest. Crimson rays shone through his fingers: a thin lacework of red with a sigil at its centre, as if someone had dipped a coin in ink and pressed it there.

Hawke’s mouth firmed into a grim line. She had found her quarry. 

**Author's Note:**

> Another old draft from 2018.


End file.
